Finalists Announced in 2013 PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards Competition

BOSTON --(Business Wire)--

PYMNTS.com,
the leading platform for news and content related to "what's next" in
payments innovation, released its list of finalists for the 2013
PYMNTS Innovator Awards. The finalists were chosen across fifteen
categories by a panel of judges with deep and practical expertise in
payments and payments innovation. Winners will be chosen by the
PYMNTS.com community, and the top three finalists in each category will
be given an award at the PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards Dinner held this
year on March 21, 2013 at Annenberg Hall on the Harvard University
Campus as part of The Innovation Project. B.J. Novak, writer, actor and
producer of the award-winning comedy series, The Office, will
serve as the Awards Dinner emcee. The Innovation Project 2013 is hosted
by PYMNTS.com, the leading platform for news and content on "what's
next" in payments innovation and is dedicated to changing the way that
the payments industry, thinks, creates and ignites innovation.

The fifteen categories include the payments industry version of Oscar's
"best picture" Most Innovative and Most Disruptive.
Nominees in the Most Innovative category include Adyen, American
Express/Twitter (News - Alert) Commerce, Monitise, PayPal and Walmart. Nominees in Most
Disruptive category include Braintree, Discover Network, Dwolla,
LevelUp and Square. The thirteen other categories include Best
Technology, Best Prepaid, Best Credit, Best Debit,
Best Cash, Best Check, Best POS, Best B2B, Best Small
Business and Best Merchant Innovations, Best Newcomer, Most
Invisible, and Best Comeback Story. Capital Access Network,
LevelUp and Walmart all placed as finalists in more than one category. A
complete list of all finalists by category with descriptions of their
innovations can be found here.

"We ended up with more than 500 submissions and it was really
challenging to narrow such an outstanding field of nominees to the 70 or
so that are now finalists," said Karen Webster, CEO of Market Platform
Dynamics and President of PYMNTS.com. "The judges all remarked at how
impressive this slate of nominees was this year. We congratulate the
finalists for their part in creating and igniting the innovation that is
reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem as we know it and
delivering such value to merchants and consumers - as well as to
everyone who took the time to submit a nomination. But, now it is up the
PYMNTS.com community to decide who gets with the top honors."

Over 2 days, 100 speakers and 500 senior members of the payments
industry will change the way that the payments and its broader commerce
ecosystem thinks, talks, delivers and ignites innovation. On March 20th and
21st the greatest minds in commerce and payments will
assemble at Harvard University near Boston to kick the conversation
about innovation up to an entirely different level at a program called The
Innovation Project. Speakers and delegates are among the most senior
executives and elite innovators from literally every established
payments company worldwide, along with the CEOs of the most innovative
start-ups in the space. One of its five modules includes pairing
industry CEOs with external thought leaders such as Al Gore (former
US VP), SteveLevitt (Freakonomics), Eric Reis (The
Lean Start Up), Rosie Rios (US Treasurer), Russell Simmons (Rush
Card), Raj Date (CFPB),and Josh Lerner(Architecture
of Innovation) to challenge the conventional wisdom around what it
will take to get merchants and consumers to adopt new ways to shop and
pay. Warren Buffett is the program's keynote. The Innovation
Project also hosts the industry's 2013 PYMNTS.com Innovator Awards,
given to 15 of the industry's top innovators over dinner, which this
year will be emceed by B.J. Novak of The Office and will
introduce delegates to 40 of the hottest "next generation" payments
innovators.

About PYMNTS.com

PYMNTS.com is reinventing the way in which companies in payments share
relevant information about the initiatives that shape the future of
commerce and make news. This powerful B2B platform is the #1 site for
the payments industry by traffic and the premier source of information
about "what's next" in payments. C-suite and VP level executives read it
daily for these insights, making the PYMNTS.com audience the most
valuable in the industry. It provides an interactive platform for
companies to demonstrate thought It provides an interactive platform for
companies to demonstrate thought leadership, popularize products and,
most importantly, capture the mindshare of global decision-makers. It's
where the best minds and best content meet on the web.